Speaker accused of being notorious for suspending Standing Orders

Chief Opposition Whip and Kandy District MP Lakshman Kiriella last Wednesday accused Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena of being notorious for suspending Standing Orders of the House.He said so when the Opposition MPs opposed taking up the new Inland Revenue (Amendment) Bill for debate in Parliament without going through the relevant consultative committee stages.

Kiriella said that the bill has to go to either the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) or an advisory committee prior to being taken up in parliament.

“This we have agreed at party leaders’ meeting that every bill before their taking up for debate should go through these consultative committees and detailed reports and their data discussed at those committee meetings should be made available to the MPs. How could the MPs debate without relevant data?” Kiriella queried from the Speaker and said that the latter was known for suspending the Standing Orders to run the House.

“You have not given the COPF chairman post due to the Opposition for two years. If we had that post we would have easily predicted and prevented the present economic crisis. Had we got the chairmanship of COPF in 2020, we could have told the country of the imminent collapse of the economy. You suspended the Standing Orders and prevented us from getting the COPF chairman post for an opposition MP,” Kiriella told the Speaker.

Speaker Abeywardena: What is the point of now talking about that? There is no use of talking of something that would have happened if something else happened early. We must move ahead without wasting the time for such talks. There has been a mistake here.

Leader of the House Education Minister Susil Premajayantha: When a bill is submitted to the House anyone with any problem could go before the Supreme Court. Now the Supreme Court has given its determination. As per the normal procedure, the bill should have been gone before the COPF. But party leaders met yesterday to take this bill for debate. The COPF should have taken the bill for its scrutiny this morning. The COPF can do that now and we can take the debate after that.

Speaker Abeywardena asked COPF chairman Dr. Harsha de Silva whether he could hold a meeting yesterday itself and then the bill could be taken up for debate at 4.30 pm on the same day.

Dr. De Silva said that the time was not sufficient to do the committee’s work. “We have not discussed this bill in the committee. We need time to see the content of this Bill.”

Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa said that the COPF is not a rubber stamp of government businesses.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe who is also the Minister of Finance said that he did not send the bill to the advisory committee. “You have two choices. You can take up the bill for the debate today or on Saturday. The COPF chairman wanted to discuss it. I told my secretary to furnish the COPF with necessary information, and advised the COPF to be liable to any leaks of sensitive information,” the President, adding that the bill has to be passed by this Sunday.